


Endless Oil

by orphan_account



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen, Hanukkah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2787056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short stories about Hanukkah celebrations at the B&B over the years, featuring Jewish!Myka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2009

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Hanukkah!
> 
> This is my first attempt at fic-writing. I don't actually have a clue what I'm doing or if this is any good, so helpful comments/criticism are totally welcome.
> 
> I'm going to try to get all the chapters/years done by the end of Hanukkah, but finals. So we'll see.

“Hey Myka,” Leena asks one afternoon in early December, “you're Jewish, right?”

Myka looks up from the book she's been reading and nods.

“Well... Artie always gets grumpier than usual around Christmas time, and I think he'd love to have a Hanukkah celebration but there hasn't been another Jew at the Warehouse in years...”

Myka grins. “I'm on it.”

***

Myka fails to find any of the necessary Hanukkah supplies in Univille's small collection of shops, so later that week she takes an afternoon off to drive to Featherhead for the requisite menorahs, candles, dreidels, gelt, as well as a few random Hanukkah decorations. 

She spends most of the long drive there and back reminiscing about Hanukkahs of her childhood. Hanukkah and other Jewish holidays made up many of Myka's favorite family memories, for the simple reason that her father was absent from nearly all of them. Warren Bering was not Jewish, and never understood his wife's determination to maintain her own family's holiday traditions with her daughters. When he realized he wasn't going to talk her out of it, he gave up, and most years he went out with friends for at least a couple nights of Hanukkah, and perhaps some other Jewish holidays if it was convenient for him, leaving the three Bering women a rare chance to relax and celebrate together.

***

It's Pete's and Claudia's first Hanukkah, so as soon as the menorah is lit for the first night and sitting in one the B&B's street-facing windows, Artie takes it upon himself to relate to them the story behind the holiday. 

“Wow,” Pete jokes as soon as Artie finishes, “Sounds artifact-y. Why are we using this boring menorah?” he asks, gesturing to the one shining from the window, “don't we have the magic one in the Warehouse?”

Rather than laughing, Artie grumbles something about the Regents and not approving of casual use of artifacts for religious celebrations. 

“Do we have the original Hanukkah menorah?” Myka asks, wondering why this never occurred to her. “Why can't we use it? What's the downside?”

“Not much,” Artie responds, “It just induces a craving for fried foods for the eight days that it burns.”

Myka laughs a little too hard at this. “That doesn't seem like much of a problem. We're making latkes anyway.” Pete concurs that this does not sound like a downside to him, as long as there are plenty of fried foods available to eat. 

“Alright,” Claudia pipes up, “screw the regents, let's use this thing!”

Artie looks like he thinks he should object, but can't quite bring himself to do so. Myka glances over to Leena, who shrugs. “Okay,” Myka declares, standing up and grabbing her keys.

***

Twenty minutes later, Myka and Claudia return to the B&B, artifact in hand. As soon as Artie lights it, Myka and Leena disappear into the kitchen to prepare the much-anticipated latkes.


	2. 2010

The first Hanukkah at the B&B had been exciting for everyone due to its novelty: for half of the Warehouse family it was their first Hanukkah celebration ever; for everyone, it was their first using the menorah.

By the second year, the holiday has firmly established itself as a family tradition.

For Myka, this year has an added benefit: her stuff finally arrived from her previous home a few months ago, meaning she could now use her childhood menorah as well. She reaches up to retrieve it from the shelf in her B&B room—her shelf for items of particular sentimental value, where the menorah sits between a handful of first-edition books and the grappler that H.G. recently left her. She smiles as she remembers the day, when she was eight years old, that her mother had taken her and Tracy to a pottery-painting studio to paint their own menorahs, which they each used every Hanukkah for years afterward. Myka had meticulously painted hers in four different shades of blue, signing her name at the base in the Hebrew alphabet she had just taught herself. Tracy, through some combination of being only five years old at the time and being Tracy, had painted hers much more chaotically, with disorganized splashes of orange and yellow and purple. For nearly a decade after making the menorahs the sisters had had at least one lighthearted argument per year over the relative merits of their styles. Myka argued that hers was clearly superior for being in the correct Hanukkah colors and displaying actual craftsmanship, while Tracy stubbornly defended her younger self's creativity.

Myka carries this relic from her childhood downstairs, smiling to find that Claudia and Pete have gotten started on the festivities early with a game of dreidel. 

“Gimel! Gimel for gimme ALL the chocolate!” Pete shouts triumphantly as Myka enters the room, reaching for the small pile of gelt that sits between them on the floor. 

“Hey, no!” Claudia swats his hand away, “that's a nun! You do nothing!”

“No, I'm sure that's what gimel looked like. Myka, back me up here?”

Myka sets the menorah down on the table then wanders over to inspect the small wooden top. “Sorry Pete, definitely nun.” 

“Aww man, you guys ruin everything,” Pete sighs, gesturing for Claudia to take her turn.

His anguished cry when she promptly rolls an actual gimel is enough to bring Leena running downstairs to make sure no one's hurt.


End file.
